


occupational hazards

by heartofwinterfell



Series: the big chill [1]
Category: Mighty Ducks (Movies)
Genre: 5+1, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, appearances by most other ducks, emphasis on the hurt, with the boys doing their best at the comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:28:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23306818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartofwinterfell/pseuds/heartofwinterfell
Summary: “There were a lot of bad checks and calls, Spazway,” Goldberg had said as he dumped his equipment in a heap and started out of the room. “You seem to care more about Adam’s wrist than Adam does.”“Well, I think we all care about Adam’s health more than Adam does.” Connie had shot Adam a pointed look before disappearing out the door and Charlie felt the reality of her words like a full-body check into the boards.[or, five times adam gets hurt and one time charlie does]
Relationships: Adam Banks/Charlie Conway
Series: the big chill [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1692514
Comments: 13
Kudos: 94





	occupational hazards

**Author's Note:**

> This just in: social distancing is conducive to becoming obsessed with a children’s sports trilogy that mostly came out before you were born!

**i: ducks vs. hawks final**

The final thing Charlie Conway takes away from all this is that District V is a small place.

The lines that cut up Minneapolis, the lines that put Adam Banks firmly on his side, have boxed the Ducks all up into a misshaped little neighborhood that Charlie can skate through in under an hour. And it only takes fifteen minutes from his place to Adam’s front door.

It’s Adam who opens the door, to Charlie's great relief. He hadn’t been looking forward to explaining himself to Mr. Banks. Adam still makes Charlie take off his roller blades before he enters the house though and Charlie notes to himself they still have a ways to go yet to yank Adam out of his shell.

(“That guy’s got a whole hockey stick jammed up his -”

“Can it, Goldberg,” Jesse had snapped, only a day after their victory, when they were still coming down from the high, but the questions started trickling into the backs of all their minds. Namely, where they’d all end up come next season.)

“I just wanted to see how you were doing,” Charlie says once they’re up in Adam’s room. It’s the cleanest room belonging to an eleven-year-old that Charlie has ever seen. Everything has it’s neat and perfect place, not even a single sock dangling out of the laundry hamper. It’s frustratingly, but absolutely Adam.

So is the way Adam blinks at him with surprised eyes like he can’t quite believe Charlie remembered he existed after the paramedics wheeled him off the ice.

That’s why Charlie is here. He may not know much about being a captain yet, but he’s sure it means, first and foremost, no teammate gets left behind. No one is forgotten.

It’s also been three days and Charlie can’t shake the image of Adam lying motionless by the net. He knew, distantly, from years of watching some of his favorite NHL players blown out of the game, that this can all be over in seconds. Adam seemed like the untouchable one, though. Adam is supposed to be the one who outskates them all.

He needs Adam to know he’ll take those hits, the ones that get you down and out. That’s what Ducks do.

“The doctor said it’s just a minor concussion,” Adam finally says. “I should be okay to keep practicing in the off season in a week or two.”

“Cool,” Charlie says with a nod, maybe a little too overeager. “We can use the pond by my house, ya know, before everything melts.”

“You’d -” Adam stops, but Charlie can guess where he was going with that. You’d really want me to practice with you? You’d want me there? But Adam says instead, with a hint of a smile, “I’d like that.”

“Cool.” Charlie inwardly cringes at how lame he sounds, and he’s not quite sure why his face suddenly feels so hot. Maybe his mom has been right this whole time - doing a nice thing for someone comes with a heap of warm and fuzzy feelings. “Averman, Goldberg, and I always practice at four after school. I think Fulton and Guy are going to start joining, too. You can come and watch, too, before you get cleared to play again…”

Suddenly, he wishes desperately for Averman or Goldberg to be here now to interrupt his rambling. They’re the natural talkers, even if they’re all prone to stuff their foot in their mouths eventually. But Adam’s still smiling, which has to be a good sign. “I’ll -uh, go now and see you tomorrow?”

“I’ll talk about it with my dad,” and Charlie doesn’t miss the way Adam’s smile fades slightly. “But yeah, I’ll try to make it.”

Charlie’s halfway down the stairs when Adam calls, “Hey, Charlie?”

Adam appears at the bannister, scratching the back of his neck, studiously avoiding Charlie’s eyes when he says, “Thanks for...thanks for everything.”

“You don’t have to thank me, Banksy. What are friends for?”

  
**ii: goodwill games, usa vs. iceland**

“That was such bullshit.” Charlie’s seething. He’s not sure he ever felt anger like this, the kind that tingles in your fingers and flames up the tips of your ears. “He should have been ejected from the game.”

He shouldn’t have the energy to stalk around the locker room like a caged animal. Coach’s extra laps weigh heavy on his limbs, but he has something left in the reserves to spare on being righteously angry on Adam’s behalf. Adam, who is sitting with his arms resting on his knees, watching Charlie rage with tired, defeated eyes. Everyone else has gone, too tired to listen to Charlie’s tirade.

(“There were a lot of bad checks and calls, Spazway,” Goldberg had said as he dumped his equipment in a heap and started out of the room. “You seem to care more about Adam’s wrist than Adam does.”

“Well, I think we all care about Adam’s health more than Adam does.” Connie had shot Adam a pointed look before disappearing out the door and Charlie felt the reality of her words like a full-body check into the boards.)

“There’s nothing we can do about it now,” Adam says quietly, during a pause when Charlie is forced to breath.

“Well, if we still had a coach, he’d be doing something about it.” It should feel blasphemous, talking badly about Coach Bombay, but it’s been an endless night and all Charlie cares about is how Adam winces every time he moves his wrist. “We have to have someone look at that.”

“No.”

Charlie collapses on the bench across from Adam, their knees knocking together. “Banksy -”

Adam shook his head fervently, avoiding Charlie’s eyes. “I have to play, Charlie.”

Demanding to know why would be stupid, because Charlie knows that if their places were switched, he’d be finding every excuse to stay on the ice. Charlie and Adam love hockey the same way everyone in the world loves breathing - it’s so ingrained in their everyday lives that only when something threatens to take it away do they realize how desperately they need it. But there’s something else too, resignation in the way Adam insists he has to soldier through.

“This is about the scouts, isn’t it?”

Adam stands up so quickly that his shins collide with Charlie’s knees. “Please drop it, Charlie.”

Charlie stands too, intent on following wherever Adam tries to run to. “And your dad, is he -”

“I said drop it,” Adam snaps and it’s so unlike Adam that they both jump back a step. The silence that follows is painful, seeming to suck all the oxygen out of the room. The anger that had been flowing through Charlie, bolstering him up, floods out of him. Charlie had thought by taking up the mantle Coach Bombay dropped at their feet, he’d be helping Adam. Looking at Adam now, as he rubbed furiously at his eyes with his good hand, Charlie sees he’s only piling on.

They pack up in silence, backs to each other. The back hallway is dim when they leave, only the emergency lights still on, and Charlie has to wonder how no one came scouring for them. Everyone must have fallen asleep the second their heads hit the pillow. Charlie’s envious, but he’s also following after Adam, seeing the heavy hunch in his shoulders. And if no one will be around to look for them, all of Los Angeles is suddenly their own.

Charlie runs the short distance to catch up to Adam, putting them shoulder to shoulder. “Hey, wanna see if there’s a place around here still open for ice cream?” It’s not much, but it’s the best distracting idea Charlie has.

“We’re supposed to head right back to our room,” Adam says with a frown.

“Yeah, but when has that ever stopped us before?”

“You mean when has that ever stopped _you_ before?” But now there’s a smile threatening to break on Adam’s face and Charlie knows he’s won.

Even weighed down with equipment, Charlie swings an arm around Adam’s shoulders. They leave the arena debating chocolate versus vanilla and Charlie tries to forget about Iceland, and poor coaches, and unfairly bruised wrists.

  
**iii: jv vs. varsity, first scrimmage**

He finds Adam where he so often does, shooting pucks past a cardboard goalie in his own driveway, a powerhouse of one. He’s thought of telling Adam how predictable he is, but Charlie never wants there to be a time when he can’t find Adam when he needs him.

This time though, Adam pretends Charlie doesn’t exist, even after Charlie skates up and leans against the net. It hurts. All of it still does. Adam leaving them for varsity, Adam seemingly standing by for every injustice varsity has dealt to them up to now, Adam and him coming to blows for the first time since their starting days in the pee-wees.

There’s no way to pinpoint when it became Charlie and Adam, the unlikely but inseparable duo, but they’re separated now and Charlie feels the division as though he himself were sawed in two.

“Will you please talk to me?”

Adam sends a puck slamming into the net, jolting the net - and Charlie - backwards.

“I’m sorry, okay? I’m -”

At the apology, Adam’s eyes flicker up at him, his head tilting slightly, and Charlie abruptly stops talking. There’s a gray and blue bruise blooming on Adam’s jaw, a bruise that had not been there days before. Charlie rushes forward, ignoring the way Adam stumbles back, and takes Adam’s chin in his hand.

“Did I do this?”

Adam’s squirming, bringing up his own hand to cover the bruise, but Charlie holds fast. He thought he’d never feel worse than that moment skating off the ice, only Fulton following him. That indignation was nothing compared to guilt and disgust in himself he feels now.

Finally, as if sensing Charlie will not let this go, Adam sighs. “I think it was actually someone from varsity trying to take a swing at Fulton. He got me instead.”

Somehow, that does nothing to make Charlie feel better.

“It’s my fault the fight even happened,” Charlie says. “It’s just those varsity guys are such assholes.”

“They’re -” Adam looks ready to protest, because every instinct he has not related to hockey tells him to do the polite thing. It used to drive Charlie crazy, before it saved their skins from quite a few half-baked plans of the Ducks tumbled into. This time though, Adam pulls a revolted face and says, “They’re awful.”

It’s dawning on Charlie just how miserable Adam has looked over the past few weeks, forced on the outside of the Ducks again, surely sticking with varsity only because his father must have hammered it into his head that this is where he needed to be, keeping his head down to avoid becoming a varsity target when he had to be with them for hours on end. And the Ducks blamed him for it. Charlie blamed him for it.

“I’m really sorry, Banksy,” Charlie says again, free of any frustration.

“I’m sorry, too.”

Charlie opens his mouth, ready to say Adam has nothing to apologize for, when it occurs to him just how close they’re standing, skates brushing skates, Charlie’s hand still cupping Adam’s chin. He rockets back, too hard, too fast. His skates slip, feet flying out from under him. It’s Adam, grabbing both his arms and jerking him forward, that saves Charlie’s head from hitting the concrete.

“Alright, Spazway?” comes Adam’s voice, close to his ear, Charlie’s face smashed against Adam’s chest.

Charlie pushes back, carefully this time, and tries to ignore all the blood rushing to his head. He sticks out his hand instead. “Friends?”

Without hesitation, Adam takes it. “Always.”

(Much later, after scholarships are revoked and returned, after a hockey game is won, after the Ducks reign supreme once more, and after Charlie has kissed the girl, he’ll wonder why he didn’t feel the spark, the electric current he felt when Adam took his hand and they shook all the bad blood away.

Then they’ll pile into Goldberg’s Diner to celebrate, and Charlie will catch Adam’s eye from across the small room, and there’ll be a faint crackle again when Adam smiles at him. Charlie will not yet know what to make of it.)

  
**iv: eden hall vs. andover prep**

First round of the play-offs and Charlie is watching Adam’s back.

(“Number 99,” he had overheard the opposing team’s coach say. “Someone’s always gotta be on Number 99.”

Charlie’d never miss the hungry look in the Goliath player’s eyes, the unspoken permission he’s been given to go until he sees blood. He’d seen that look directed at Adam too many times before.)

He’ll be a modern art piece of black and blue bruises tomorrow, but he sure does enjoy the growls of frustration and the opposing coach’s barking seal orders whenever Adam gets a breakaway and Charlie’s there to stop anyone else from getting close.

Some on his own team are less than thrilled, though.

“You’re not on this team to be Banks’ personal bodyguard,” Orion says at the change up.

“The Cap’s just looking out for his team, Coach,” Guy says right as he charges out to center. Charlie’d appreciate the backup more if it didn’t come with Russ and Averman snickering over something they were all clearly whispering about before Charlie came off the ice.

“Yeah,” Russ calls out, “What’s a prince without his knight in shining armor?”

After so many years of embarrassing pranks and dragging Adam into situations he did not want to be in, there should be a limit to how red Adam’s face could get. At this exact moment, Charlie has never seen this deep a shade of scarlet.

Adam corners him in the locker rooms between the second and third period, blue eyes fiery. “Stop taking all my hits for me.”

Charlie throws up both his hands, as if to deny it, but he has no real defense nor is he all that sorry. “Look, that huge guy -”

“I can handle it, Charlie,” Adam says, cutting Charlie off and storming back out towards the rink before Charlie can argue back.

“You should listen to him,” Connie says once Adam has left the locker room. “I’d kick Guy’s ass if I thought he was trying to make things easy for me.”

“It’s not the same.” Someone behind him snorts, loudly, with no attempt made to stifle it.

“Why, because I’m a girl?” Connie asks, eyebrow raised. Out of the corner of his eyes, Charlie sees Averman and Russ slowly backing out of the room.

“What? No! Of course not. It’s just that -”

How did Charlie explain to any of them - Connie, Coach Orion, Adam himself - the silent promise he made back in the pee-wees? He’d take the hard hits, the blood-thirsty ones that were meant to knock skulls and break bones. They all had to see by now that Adam’s special. He’s the one who they’ll be seeing on TV five years down the line. Charlie’s happy to be the collateral damage, the one who steps down to give him a spot, the one who coaches from the sidelines and gets to watch him make the game winning goal.

But Charlie’s also happy when the Ducks aren’t at each other’s throats over who’s the most valuable player. So with a scowl, Charlie says, “Fine, I’ll let everyone get hurt as much as they want.”

It’s not his fault when the universe makes good on that promise.

He’s on the bench, watching with a breathless sense of foreboding as their senior goalie makes a save and passes the puck off to Guy. He knows the play Orion’s going for - it’d be his first choice too if the line-up were switched - but when Guy passes the puck off to Adam, Charlie wants to scream. Maybe he does.

They’re all yelling when Goliath sends Adam a clean three feet into the air. He hits the ice like a rag doll, limbs splayed at bad angles and utterly unmoving.

Everything after happens in snapshots. Orion screaming at the ref. Guy and another varsity player plowing into the opposing team, fists reigning down furiously. Averman and Russ and Julie and Connie all cursing violently up against the barrier of the bench. From the stands, Mr. and Mrs. Banks are calling their son’s name.

Charlie skates through it all, skates out of the bench, past Orion, past the fight storming, past the refs, until he’s at Adam’s side. The paramedics rush out and Charlie skates with them, too, across the length of the ice, until it gets difficult to follow. They’re saying he’ll be all right - broken ribs, maybe, a concussion, potentially - but Charlie has to be sure.

“Where do you think you’re going, Conway?”

Charlie realizes belatedly why it’s so hard to move. His skates have hit concrete. When he cranes his neck around, he sees Coach Orion looking at him, wholly unimpressed. There’s still five minutes left in the period and they’re shaping up to be the longest of Charlie’s life.

He hits the bench with a groan, feeling all at once like a puppet with the strings slashed, left with a mess of body parts that cannot move on their own. On his right, Julie’s warming the bench and eyeing him with an amused smile that Charlie’s too tired to decipher.

“What?” he asks, already knowing she’ll never come out with it.

That still doesn’t explain the hard eye roll she gives him, as though he were too dumb to live. “Just do me a favor and come to me or Connie when you finally want to talk about it.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Julie only rolls her eyes again and turns back to the game. She never leaves the bench - the woes of playing second on varsity in your sophomore year - but Charlie does once. He’s promptly pulled thirty seconds later by an exasperated Orion.

They eke out the win, 1-0, but they could have been killed 0-100 and Charlie would have been content just to get off the ice. That might be a small exaggeration, but Charlie’s never ripped his gear off faster. It’s only Orion, grabbing his elbow at the door, that stops Charlie from bolting immediately to the school infirmary.

“There’s going to come a day when you and Banks won’t be playing together.”

Whatever wisdom Orion is hoping to peddle, Charlie is not buying it. Not now, anyway. Charlie slips by Orion and lets his coach shout his name down the hall, but doesn’t turn back around. He reaches the infirmary in record time, skidding to a stop only when he reaches the foot of Adam’s bed.

“Sorry you didn’t let me take that hit, now?”

Adam glares at him, but there’s no heat behind it. Charlie gets to break the good news to Mr. Banks that they won (recounting the final five minutes with a peppering of lies he knows Adam sees through) and it’s also Charlie who gets to help Adam back to their room when the Banks relent and drive home.

No broken bones, no bruised ribs, but another minor concussion. It’s nothing worth celebrating, but Charlie’s happy enough knowing Adam won’t be miserable in a cast for weeks. He’s ready to call the matter settled, turn the lights off and sleep the rest of it away like a bad dream, when Adam grumbles from his bed, “You know, I hate when you get hurt, too.”

Charlie, half in and half out of bed, stalls completely. It’s exactly his luck that Adam’s fast asleep by the time his blindsided brain restarts. 

That leaves Charlie to stare up at the ceiling, wide awake, replaying the events of the night like an emotional highlight reel. His mind keeps sticking on Coach Orion reminding him he and Adam would not be playing side by side forever.

With coaches like Bombay and Orion, any player would get good at reading between the lines of their inspirational speeches and throwaway advice. Charlie knows Orion wants him to get his act together, not fall apart the second Adam isn’t there to smile encouragingly at him from across the ice, or on the bench, or in the huddle when all seems lost, or in the massive dogpile when all’s been won. Orion’s probably right.

But he’s not right where it counts, Charlie thinks, turning his head to look at Adam through the darkness. There’s just enough moonlight streaming through the blinds to see him, half buried under his comforter, looking peaceful and not like someone whose brain almost got scrambled a few hours before. Charlie smiles, because there’s never going to be a time when they’re not side by side.

Maybe this is a revelation. Maybe it should be scary. It is, a little. One part of Charlie wants to jump out of bed and shake Adam awake, only so he can pour out his heart in a poorly rehearsed monologue. Another part wants to shove it down, lock it away in a box never to be open, because he’s lived through a time where he didn’t talk to Adam and he never wants to do anything that might return him to that hell, and permanently.

He can skate laps and run it through his mind tomorrow. Tonight, Charlie’s happy just to hear Adam snore.

  
**v: jv vs. varsity, senior year**

The JV versus Varsity game has a reputation for being a bloodbath. How could it be any less - what with freshmen players, just cutting their teeth and desperate to prove themselves, put up against a finely tuned team of upperclassmen ready to let loose.

That still cannot account for the number of violent checks Adam’s been dealt since the first buzzer sounded.

Charlie wanted a fun final JV/Varsity match up. Instead, he’s spent the last forty minutes alternating between grinding his teeth on the ice and grinding his teeth on the bench.

(“You’re not going to have teeth by the end of the game, Conway,” Goldberg said as the seconds counted down toward the end of the first period.

“Neither are you,” Charlie grits out. He earned a chorus of cackling, undoubtedly at his own expense, for that one.)

Varsity’s up by two as the second period winds down. The fresh meat JV coach calls a time-out, but not before a JV player slams Adam into the boards by their own goal. Adam’s still rolling out his shoulders when Charlie skates up to him, Portman hot at his heels.

Portman lets out a low whistle, eyes trained on the JV huddle. “If this is how he flirts, I don’t want to see how he actually competes,” he says and, like so many things Portman throws into conversation, Charlie has no idea where it came from.

“Huh?”

“Portman, don’t,” Adam says and, added to the things Charlie absolutely does not understand at this bizarre moment, he sounds pleading.

The begging is apparently lost on Portman, who turns to Charlie and says, “Number 18, Avery? He’s been after Banksy for weeks. Damn freshman, clearly doesn’t understand we don’t fraternize with the enemy.”

Adam skates a few feet away from them before groaning and knocking his helmet against the glass. That’s all background noise to Charlie, lost to the sirens sounding in his head as he clocks 18 peeking out of the huddle to find Adam across the rink.

A minute later, Charlie cuts off Avery in a rush toward the goal, sending him flying so hard into the wall that the glass shakes. Another thirty seconds pass and Charlie cuts a full diagonal across the ice to check Avery against the boards as he gunned for Adam. The third strike comes when Charlie’s stick gets caught on Avery’s leg and sends him toppling forward onto the ice. In Charlie’s defense, he was moving to side check him and the trip was an unfortunate miscalculation.

Still, as the ref ushers him into the penalty box, Charlie is sure to say, “Two minutes well worth it.”

When Charlie’s two minutes are up, it’s hard to tell who’s more frustrated with him: Adam or Coach Orion.

“What have I said about playing Banks’ bodyguard?”

From down the bench, Averman pipes in, “It looks to me he’s more playing assassin.”

Not even giving Averman a passing glance, Orion levels Charlie a hard look. “Play the real game, Conway.”

Though it can’t be Orion’s doing, the real game comes to Charlie in the form of a new vendetta Avery has against him. When Charlie’s finally back out on the ice again, he has the freshman breathing down his neck. Every time Charlie gets the puck, Avery’s there to clash sticks with him. At the start of the third period, Charlie nearly gets an elbow to the neck in a fight for control.

“Can you now tell your stalker to lay off Conway?” Portman asks during JV’s final timeout. Charlie sees Adam’s nostrils flare even from under his helmet.

“His what?”

There’s no time for Portman to fill Guy in. The ref blows the whistle and they’re back on the ice, the crowd rumbling all around them. Charlie tries to catch Adam’s eye before the face-off, but he’s looking forward, his jaw clenched, that focused look Charlie loves so much setting in. Three minutes left, one goal ahead.

And Charlie had to know it would all come to a head. This is hockey, they are the Ducks, all actions taken outside of the rink seem to have consequences that reverberate within.

He just wishes it were his skate that got caught up in Number 18’s skates, his ankle that twisted on the way down. No, he had only been the one with the puck. He had only been the one Avery was gunning for. Adam had become the one in between.

“So, does this work both ways? Does Banksy get reamed at for being Conway’s bodyguard or -”

“Hit the showers, Tyler.”

Orion glances between Adam, his leg propped up on the bench, red and throbbing ankle packed with ice, and Charlie, sitting on the bench across from him, hands twisting in a towel, and sighs. “I want that looked at by the trainer first thing tomorrow morning.”

“I really think it’s just bruised, coach,” Adam says, though he flinches when his leg shifts a hair. Charlie flinches, too.

“Boys -” Orion sighs a second time and it’s the sigh of a man who has coached Conway and Banks for one year of JV and going on three years of varsity. When he opens his eyes, he has a look on his face that Charlie wants to categorize as exasperatedly fond. “First thing tomorrow morning.”

The coach goes and the rest of the team follows. Adam and Charlie both wave off Portman and Fulton’s offer to help Adam back to the dorms, wanting to linger in the lockers for a little while longer. Long enough for Charlie to move from his lonely bench to Adam’s, letting Adam lean his back against his shoulder, the real pain he’s feeling breaking through on his face.

“How bad is it really?”

“I don’t think it’s sprained,” Adam says, “But it’s a bad bruise.”

Spoken like someone who has been taught the difference too many times. “Did you offend some vengeful god in another life?” Charlie asks, half-serious.

“What?”

“You get hurt more than anyone else on the team. Always have.”

Adam starts to say, “No, Portman and Fulton -”

“Are built like brick walls. They get some bruises and busted lips, maybe.”

“Guy always -”

“Nope, it’s you,” Charlie says, reaching over to brush Adam’s matted bangs off his face because he knows he secretly likes when he does.

“That’s the price of hockey,” Adam says, sounding too much like his father.

Charlie frowns, though he knows Adam can’t really see it. “It just feels like you have this target on your back sometimes.”

Adam tenses and Charlie worries he said the wrong thing. Then, Adam does his best to twist around and it’s him who looks oddly worried. “You know, I -...” Adam trails off, his eyebrows knitting together, the look he gets when he has something important to say but fears he’ll get it wrong. “I thought that guy - Avery - might have been interested, but I never - I wouldn’t -”

“Hey, Banksy -” Charlie moves off the bench to kneel beside it. It’s an awkward position - a bit too much like taking a knee - but it means he can look Adam in the eye when he says, “I never thought you were interested in that freshman. I was just pissed he thought the best way to get into your pants was knocking you into the boards.”

“Well, it worked for me,” Adam says, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips, a dangerous one.

“Yeah, but I’m easy,” Charlie replies, trying to pitch his voice low.

He probably failed miserably, but it’s all worth it when Adam whispers, “No, I don’t think so” and Charlie forgets to be embarrassed. He forgets everything that’s not surging forward and capturing Adam’s lips with his own, marveling that kissing Adam always remains as exhilarating as it did the first time.

They’re not sophomores anymore though, fumbling in locker rooms and on narrow twin beds, never quite getting the angle right. That’s how Charlie knows this is a messy kiss, made awkward by him kneeling and Adam’s propped leg, and the stick of sweat still hanging in the air. Charlie breaks away, skating the pad of his thumb across Adam’s cheek once before standing and dropping a kiss in his hair. “We should probably get you back to our room before Orion storms in here and kills me.”

It’ll always be a struggle, hobbling across campus on a hurting ankle, but Charlie and Adam are practiced enough that they get Adam standing and out of the locker room with minimal cringing. They’re outside, stars hanging high over their head, when Adam says, “Promise me one thing?”

Charlie turns his head to look at Adam, his hair glowing under the moonlight and his eyes sparkling even through the surging pain he must be feeling, and thinks, _anything_.

“Help me make sure Portman doesn’t try to set me up with that guy.”

  
**vi: ducks vs. ducks**

There’s no scoreboard on the court, no neon red letters announcing how much time they have left, but there feels like there’s a countdown anyway.

Two weeks until they start scattering across the continent. Some are going further West, some are heading out East, some are staying close to home but know it won’t be the same. They’re out of District V, out of the Eden Hall dorms, out of the tight flying formation they’ve perfected after all these years.

Adam can’t stop looking at Charlie. It’s become a bad habit this summer. He’ll catch himself staring at Charlie’s face rather than the movie screen when they’re slouched in the back of the theater holding hands and quietly warring over the last handful of sour patch kids. He’s come close to slamming into several road signs and crashing into various ponds, distracted by Charlie gliding in front of him, arms outstretched, honey brown curls blowing in the breeze. They’ll be lazily making out on Charlie’s bed and Adam will stop to catch his breath only to get caught up in the blissed out look on Charlie’s face, his swollen lips and glazed over eyes, until Charlie has to flip them over and make Adam forget what got him so in his head.

With two weeks left, Adam can’t forget anymore. Every time they’re at the movies, every time they’re skating through the neighborhood, every time they’re hiding away from the world in Charlie’s bedroom, Adam wonders if that time is the last time.

Like this, right now, this may be the last time all the Ducks play roller hockey. There’s no telling who won’t be home for the holidays, who will fall too in love with their new coast to come back, who will break off from the V forever, leaving the rest of them behind.

“Get out of your head.” Charlie skates up behind him, resting a gentle hand on his side. It’s hard to see in the glare of the setting sun, but when Adam tilts his head up to look at him, he can see the outline of Charlie’s bright smile.

“Thanks for the tip, coach.”

“He’s not on our team!” Russ yells from down the court. “Keep it in your pants for ten seconds and let’s play the game! That means you too, Germaine.”

“You know, boyfriend versus girlfriend, or boyfriend versus boyfriend isn’t very fun for those of us not in a couple,” Averman points out.

Portman claps Averman on the back, sending him flying forward. “You’ll get ‘em in college, bud.”

“Are we gossiping like girls about our love lives or are we playing hockey?” Goldberg calls out at the goal.

Adam sees Goldberg will live to regret those words as Connie glares and slams her stick to the ground. “Oh, let’s play.”

“But Connie, he’s our goalie,” Averman groans, skating after her.

“You’re not going to go easy on me, are you, Banksy?” Charlie asks, drawing Adam’s focus back to him.

“I never have before.”

It recalls a memory, the first time they ever played on opposing teams, the first time they ever played on the ice together period. Adam slammed Charlie against the boards just because he could, just because he knew Charlie was the best of them and he felt his father’s urging to compete. What a stupid kid he was then.

And what a stupid kid he still is. Still insanely competitive, still aware Charlie is the best of them, still always wanting to be neck and neck with him in everything.

“Remember, no holds barred!” Fulton calls before the puck drops down.

After that, it gets vicious.

They use every trick in the Ducks’ playbook - spinning pucks, and bashing, and a ten minute break for lassoing. Fulton nearly takes Goldberg’s head off with a puck. Luis skates so fast at Julie, he knocks her and the entire net over.

Then Charlie snatches up the puck, gunning for a breakaway, Goldberg bracing himself at the net, and Adam knows he has to catch him. If he loses him now, he’ll never catch up. Adam skates until the air in his lungs burns and his legs are ready to give out. Three quarters of the way there, and Adam’s at Charlie’s heel, stick outstretched to grab at the puck. He pushes forward, their sticks clashing, wood scraping against wood, and Adam has it. He has him.

Something slips - a skate or a stick or a leg - and Adam jerks back, hard, his elbow colliding with something soft and breakable.

“Oh shit!” Goldberg is the first to reach them, peering over Charlie on the ground, hand clutching his spurting nose. “You caved your boyfriend’s nose in.”

“It’s not that bad,” Charlie says. Or, that’s what Adam guesses he said. His words come out stuffy, all blurred together.

“Should we call someone?” Julie asks. All the Ducks have gathered in a tight huddle now.

“No!” Adam and Charlie yell at the same time.

“Y’all are weird,” Dwayne says, shaking his head at the grisly sight. The blood’s already staining Charlie’s Ducks jersey, the one that’s a little too tight on him now and Adam keeps forgetting to tell him so.

“Nah, they just share a pain ki-” A sharp elbow to the gut from Fulton shuts down wherever Goldberg was going.

“Well, I’m not getting anywhere near the blood, so -” Russ skates backwards out of the huddle, laughter following him as he goes.

“Mind if we keep playing?” Guy asks and it doesn’t take more than a shrug from Adam and a distracted nod from Charlie for the rest of the Ducks to take off, Fulton staying just long enough to help get Charlie to a bench.

“How bad is it actually?” Charlie asks once the game has resumed and they’re in their own private bubble.

It’s hard to tell the damage when it’s covered in blood, but there’s swelling. And though Adam would never agree with Goldberg out loud, Charlie's nose does also look a bit caved in. Trying not to wince, Adam says, “It’s probably broken.”

“Just tell me you weren’t only in it for my looks, Banksy.” Charlie blinks up at Adam with a jokingly aggrieved look on his face, even as liters of blood seem to be pouring from his nose. It’s disgusting - Adam’s hands are soaked trying to stop the bleeding, they’re both sweaty, the sun is beating down on the backs of their necks - and Adam loves him. This is how you know, right? When someone can make you laugh through the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Through a blush so fierce he wouldn’t be able to blame it on a sunburn, Adam managed to say, “Well, I certainly wasn’t in it for your hockey skills.”

Charlie gasps like a character in a soap opera and Adam laughs harder.

“Take that back,” Charlie says while trying to punch Adam’s sides. He leaves bloody fingerprints on the bottom of his yellow polo shirt and that’s pretty disgusting, too, but Adam doesn’t care because he loves him. “You were falling for my skills back in the pee-wees.”

“Yeah, I guess I was.”

He may have just betrayed a great secret. It doesn’t matter, not when a slow grin spreads across Charlie’s face, a grin that’s a little crooked and a lot bloody and is one of the most beautiful things Adam has ever seen.

“Me too.”

And when something has stuck with you since eleven, there’s no way to leave it behind now, not at eighteen, not ever. Charlie’s stuck with Adam and Adam must be the luckiest person in the world to have Charlie Conway stick with him. For the good, bad, and broken bone, concussed head, battered, bruised, bloody ugly.

**Author's Note:**

> 1) I understand JK Rowling now when she talked about how much she hated writing Quidditch scenes. This is a little over 6k and I was struggling to come up with enough hockey scenarios to fit the story. But this could also be because what I know about hockey comes from these movies, Miracle, and the novel Beartown.
> 
> 2) I am still very new to the Mighty Ducks world, so some details might be off, some timelines might have gone askew, so apologies if there is anything especially glaring!
> 
> 3) Thank you so much for reading! Stay safe, stay distancing, stay reading AO3!


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